UTSA debaters take flight at West Virginia

(March 14, 2006)--UTSA freshman debaters Andy Pennington and Jacob Alford placed third in the Junior Varsity National Championship Tournament hosted by the University of West Virginia in Morgantown.

They bested eight teams in their climb through a highly competitive field of 64 of the best JV-level teams in the country. Pennington and Alford beat teams from Mary Washington, Cornell, Georgetown, U.S. Military Academy, Oklahoma, Emporia State, Wayne State and Vermont, finally losing to Binghamton.

Article tools

Freshman Justin King and Junior Matt Reichle placed fifth in the tournament, defeating teams from Towson, Pittsburgh, U.S. Military Academy and Liberty. King and Reichle were eliminated from the single-loss elimination rounds by Binghamton.

The exceptional performance by both UTSA teams, among teams at their level of experience, caps a season-long learning curve in the open (advanced) divisions of debate in West Virginia among schools from 31 colleges and universities from across the country.

UTSA's next outing in mid-March will take the parliamentary debaters to Corvallis, Ore., for the National Parliamentary Debate Association National Championship. The UTSA policy debate teams will jump back into the open division national championship in Dallas at the end of March.